Advanced signal processing methods for pulsed laser vibrometry

Although pulsed coherent laser radar vibrometry has been introduced as an improvement over its continuous wave (CW) counterpart, it remains very sensitive to decorrelation noises, such as speckle, and other disturbances of its measurement. Taking advantage of more polyvalent polypulse waveforms, we address the issue with advanced signal processing. We have conducted what we believe is the first extensive comparison of processing techniques considering CW, pulse-pair, and polypulse emissions. In this framework, we introduce a computationally efficient maximum likelihood estimator and test signal tracking on pseudo-time-frequency representations (TFRs), which, respectively, help deal with speckle noise and fading of the signal in harsh noise conditions. Our comparison on simulated signals is validated on a 1.55 mu m all-fiber vibrometer experiment with an apparatus simulating vibration and strong speckle noise. Results show the advantage of the estimators that take into account actual noise statistics, and call for a wider use of TFRs to track the vibration-modulated signal. (C) 2010 Optical Society of America